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Friday, April 23, 2010

More on Revision

More on Revision

Or is that Moron Revision? Anyways, as usual, I’m now five months into my revision of Steam Palace. I’m now at the point where I’m in a full rewrite and done with all the endless analysis. So much stuff is changing that it’s hard to keep up. I now have to figure how twins were separated at birth. D’ohh!

I’m trying to avoid getting sucked into the Evil Twin meme. Even though the twins grow up on the opposite side of the tracks, I don’t want one to be the polar opposite of the other. And then there’s the so-called love triangle, where my MC is marrying one guy but is in love with another. Well that damn twin messes everything up, because she loves the guy the MC is supposed to marry, but then gets with the guy the MC loves….it’s a horrid mess. BTW I’m NOT a romance writer. So now I have a Love Quadrangle (or is it a Love Square?). Help…me……

And then there’s this new element, this whole backstory that explains why and how my alternate history is alternate. And I’ve barely touched on it, and it’s an integral part of the story.

So right now, I’ve printed out what should be the first third of my novel (Act I + maybe a little Act II) and I’m going over it with a fine-tooth comb. I can see a lot of issues in the printed version I can’t see in Word. Aside from writing down all the story issues I find, marking up poor sentences, and checking consistency, I’m rating every scene on these dimensions on a 0-10 scale. Then I add a comment to justify the score.

Dimension

Definition

World/Setting

How real is the setting? How unique is the world?

Conflict

How intense/interesting is the conflict? How can it be improved?

Tension

How much will the reader care about what happens here?

Twist

How big, permanent, and irreversible are the actions in the scene (the outcome)?

POV

How strong/deep/intimate is the POV? Do we really feel the emotional arc of the scene?

Importance

Probably the most “important” dimension…how important is this scene is the grand scheme of things? Turning points should be 8-10, pure backstory should be 0-3. How much does this scene contribute to the Main Plot?

Character

How believable are the character’s actions? Are they “in character?” Would they really do these things or am I making them act for my own convenience?

Continuity/Transition

How does this scene flow from the previous to the next scene? Do we know where/when we are relative to other scenes? Are we missing anything in between?

Theme

How strongly does this scene express the Main Theme of the novel? Do we go off on tangents?

And now here’s my write-up for Scene 4 to give you an example. I probably need to be harsher on the numbers, but I’m still fleshing out my system.

Item

Rating

Comment

World/Setting

7

Nice intro to RL. Maybe some more details on clothing

Conflict

8

Emperor is asking Dunstan to do a lot of hard things he doesn't want to do.

You divide your stories into Acts? Omg, so do I! I find it the easiest way to revise (chapters being too short as chunks to work with, and the entire novel being too long.)

I'm also doing a rewrite revision right now.

I love that chart that you've made (especially with the importance rating!!! how clever!) The categories are great reminders to me! I'm about to open up the current chapter document and get cracking, and I'm glad to be reminded what's important. :)

Your love quadrangle makes me laugh, too. I have something similar--more like an ex-lover who gets thrown into the mix, but can't be ignored because she's an integral part of Defeating The Bad Guy--to make my emotionally stupid MC realize she likes her partner in crime ;)

@Alex: Just your basic Three-Act Structure, nothing fancy. Although I can't decide where Act II really begins because there are a couple turning points that are good candidates. One of these days I'll figure it all out.